Megrie had thought about going back more than once.
Back to the mansion that had once been hers.
Back to the place now occupied by her stepmother, Nata.
She wanted to seek justice for the original Megrie.
For the clothes, the jewelry, the room that had been taken from her—
and most of all,
the dignity and status that should have belonged to the lord's daughter.
She wanted everything back.
But reason told her clearly—
Now was not the time.
She was too weak.
She had no power, no allies,
and even a single proper meal was something she had to obtain in secret.
Nata was different.
That woman held the title, the estate, the servants—
and the town's unspoken acceptance of her "legitimacy."
If Megrie were to return rashly now,
she would reclaim nothing.
She would only be trampled into the mud again.
Perhaps even more cruelly than before.
Megrie clenched her fists, her fingertips turning white.
She wasn't afraid.
She was enduring.
"Just wait a little longer," she whispered in her heart to the girl who had already died.
"I'll take everything back for you."
"But not yet."
She needed strength.
She needed leverage.
She needed value that could not be ignored or erased.
And cooking—
was the only weapon she held in her hands.
Before she could truly stand before Nata,
she had to survive.
And more than that—
she had to live brilliantly.
As usual, Megrie cleaned the castle alongside the other maids and servants.
The broom scraped rhythmically against the stone floor.
She kept her head lowered, her movements practiced and steady, her expression calm—
as if this kind of life had long since become routine.
"Thank goodness I've been able to eat properly at Kai's place at night…"
She wiped the railing as she muttered inwardly.
"If it were up to Nata's vicious way of deliberately limiting my food,
I'd end up starving to death just like the previous Megrie before long."
The thought didn't slow her down.
If anything, her movements became even more efficient.
At least for now, she was alive.
And she could still hold on.
When she reached the garden, the view suddenly opened up.
Sunlight poured over blooming flowers, their colors vivid, their fragrance faintly drifting through the air.
In that moment, Megrie's mood lifted without her noticing.
For some reason, a song surfaced in her mind—
Beauty and the Beast.
She froze for a second, then let out a small laugh.
"…Honestly."
She casually stood her long-handled broom upright, as if it were a microphone on a stage, and began to hum softly.
The melody didn't belong to this world.
It was a song from her previous life—
from the modern world.
The moment her voice left her lips, she froze again.
This body's voice was clear and gentle, perfectly in tune—
nothing like the tone-deaf singing she remembered, the kind her friends used to complain about.
"…Huh?"
She blinked, then couldn't help but smile.
Her good mood swelled, and her voice grew louder.
She lifted her skirt slightly, turning with the melody, even stepping into a light dance.
In her imagination, she was no longer a maid being ordered about.
She was the heroine of a story—
dancing in a garden with a Beast Prince.
Sunlight fell across her face.
Her smile bloomed naturally, sweet enough to dazzle.
And at that moment—
On the other side of the garden, a young man reading beneath a tree looked up.
It was a melody he had never heard before.
Unfamiliar—yet captivating.
He unconsciously followed the sound, his footsteps growing lighter.
When he finally saw the scene before him—
The book slipped from his hand and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Among the flowers, the girl twirled with her skirt lifted,
her song flowing through the garden,
sunlight wrapping her in a soft, luminous glow.
In that instant, she looked unreal.
Loya stared at her in a daze.
He remembered Megrie from before—
full-figured and dignified, a beautiful girl with the grace of a noble's daughter.
Then she had grown thin.
So thin it was unpleasant to look at.
That was when he had begun to sneer.
To deliberately make things difficult for her.
Even to soil places she had just finished cleaning, ordering her to do them all over again.
But now—
His heart was racing for no reason at all.
It wasn't disgust.
And it wasn't contempt.
It was something he couldn't quite name—
a strange emotion quietly spreading through his chest.
Loya stood there, frozen in place,
forgetting entirely how to speak.